What is an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP)?

Where learning needs are severe, complex and lifelong and require a particularly high level of specialist individual or small group teaching, parents can request that an EHCP. An EHCP replaces a Statement of Education and is suitable for children from Birth up to 25 years of age. EHCP’s are written with the parents, school and any other involved agencies all agreeing targets to achieve over a given time frame. This plan of support is available for children with significant lifelong barriers to learning that cannot be overcome through Quality First Teaching and intervention groups. Your child will also need specialist support in school from other professionals, for example a speech therapist from the Local Authority.

What an EHCP means for your child:

The school (or you) requests that the Local Authority carry out a statutory assessment of yourchild’s needs. This is a legal process which sets out what type of support your child needs, the amount of support that will be provided for your child and targets to achieve. After the request has been made to a panel of professionals, they will decide whether they think your child’s needs seem complex enough for an assessment. If the answer is yes, they will ask you and all professionals involved with your child to write a report outlining your child’s needs. If the answer is no, they will ask the school to continue with the current support.

After the reports have been sent in, the Panel of Professionals will decide if your child’s needs will have a lifelong effect. If this is the case, an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP). If this is not the case, they will ask the school to continue with the current level of support and also set up a meeting in school to ensure a plan is in place to help you child make as much progress as possible. If your child receives an EHCP, it may outline the number of hours of individual/small group support your child will receive from the Local Authority and how the support should be used.